Tourists To NTB Estimated To Increase 10 Percent From Airline Ticket Discounts

JAKARTA - The West Nusa Tenggara Provincial Government projects that the flow of travelers, including tourists using air transportation during the Eid 2025 or 1446 Hijri holiday season, will increase by 10 percent as a result of discounted flight ticket prices.

Head of the NTB Transportation Agency, Lalu Moh Faozal, said that although the discount policy on aircraft ticket prices was valid from March 1 to April 7, 2025, the flight period received a discount was only March 24 to April 7, 2025 or valid for 15 days.

"We are still waiting, because this policy is effective when going home. But our projection is an increase of 10 percent," he said as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, March 5.

According to Faozal, the projected increase in passenger flow using this aircraft is the same as in 2024. Likewise, the projected increase is also for travelers who use sea transportation and land transportation.

"So the increase is the same, both land, sea and air transportation. Moreover, there is a holiday period for Eid al-Fitr," said Faozal.

However, said Faozal, among these travelers are tourists who do take advantage of the holiday period while looking for vacation places.

"So we don't just count people going home but people traveling. Because there are tourists among the travelers," he explained.

Therefore, the policy of discounting plane ticket prices will automatically have an impact on the flow of tourist visits to NTB.

'Moreover, there is a new route opening on March 28, 2025, Lombok-Pontianak. The plan is to fly 4 times a week. On February 10, 2025, the Lombok-Banjarmasin route has also been opened," said Faozal.

Not to mention the existing routes such as Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Bali being the largest passengers in air transportation modes to NTB.

"So the presence of new routes or additional flights from existing routes is not only a matter of the movement of people but of tourism," he said.

It is known that the Provincial Government (Pemprov) of NTB through the Tourism Office targets the number of tourist visits to Lombok Island and Sumbawa Island for 2025 to reach 2.5 million people.

"We are targeting the same as last year's 2.5 million people. That is to motivate us in tourism," said Head of the NTB Tourism Office, Jamaluddin Malady.

He admitted that reaching the number of visits by 2.5 million tourists, of course not easy.

It takes a number of efforts, one of which steps is to launch a tourism calendar for 2025.

"So this tourism calendar is a reference for hotel industry players and travel agencies both from Indonesia and NTB to sell tour packages to NTB," he said.

According to him, the tourism sector must be boosted amidst the efficiency carried out by the central government and local governments so that other sectors such as agriculture, livestock, transportation and others get a multiplier effect.

"When there are many tourist visits to NTB, other sectors will also feel the impact," said Jamaluddin Malady.

To facilitate tourist access to NTB, his party hopes to open new routes both domestically and abroad. Including, maintaining or adding direct flights that already exist both nationally and internationally.

"In the future, we will try to prevent logging from the Middle East, especially Jeddah or Medina," he said.